Nguyễn Du, the greatest poet of Vietnam, was born in the province of Nghe An. The son of a family of mandarins, he entered the service of the Le dynasty. When the Tay Son was overthrown, she retired to her village, returning to court when Gia Long, the first king of the Nguy dinn dynasty, overthrew them. His experiences led him to a very critical attitude towards the ruling classes and to sympathize with the people and their misery, a recurring theme in the poems he wrote in Chinese. In Vietnamese, or nom, he wrote The Calling of Wandering Souls, a famous poem in which he criticized harshly the injustices of feudal society, and The Story of Kiều, his masterpiece, a 3254-verse novel, considered the most valuable work of The Vietnamese literature.